iNtegrate 2 cleared an important milestone last week – the conclusion of Prototype 1 Unit Testing – and will undertake two important measures this week to continue the project’s advancement. Those are: a daylong kick-off of Reporting, and a comprehensive, three-day planning session to assess the Project’s current status.
Prototype 1 Testing COMPLETED
Approximately 120 Project Team members, including campus Designees and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) concluded three weeks of Phase 2 Unit Testing of P1 on Wednesday (March 2). Phase 2 followed one month of Phase 1 Testing that began in January and involved the Project Team, Designees and select SMEs.
Testers saw demonstrations of the Business Processes that the Project Team, Designees, SMEs and implementation consultant Sierra-Cedar, Inc. (SCI) spent the past several months designing as part of NSHE’s Workday configuration. They used previously developed Test Scenarios to put the system through its paces and to help determine what’s working as expected and what refinements need to be made.
Testing Feedback Now Under Review
Both Human Capital Management (HCM) and Finance are now reviewing the feedback received from our testers about the testing activities, including their comments and observations of the business processes and test scenarios. Feedback will be shared with the campuses, which will allow testers to see how their efforts are contributing positively to the implementation. The feedback will help to identify necessary adjustments to our initial Workday configuration, as well as inform future testing phases.
Reporting Kick-Off
In addition to becoming the integrated source of business information for HCM, Finance and Payroll across NSHE and its member institutions, Workday also will become the main source of our reporting needs. Workday Reporting will transform our reporting function by enabling us to easily compile relevant data, and use it to create and analyze multi-dimensional reports.
Project Team and campus representatives will gather Tuesday (March 8) for a Kickoff Meeting to begin discussions about how we will derive common reports for our business purposes, and how campus-specific reports will be generated.
Expected participants include Reporting SMEs, Reporting Campus Leads, Project Team Leads and consultant architects. Campus Points of Contact also have been invited to attend.
Workday Composite Reports: Intuitive and Multi-Dimensional
To develop reports for a variety of constituencies and uses, NSHE and our institutions often must extract data from multiple systems, and then consolidate and format that information into a static, stand-alone report. This process is tedious, time-consuming and inefficient. To address this challenge, Workday’s Reporting function will provide us with meaningful information that will enable us to make better, quicker and more strategic decisions regarding our operations.
In Workday, HCM, Payroll, and Finance can generate both standardized and custom reports, the latter according to specific needs. Our Workday configuration is now slated to include more than 70 standard reports to the campuses.
Kick-Off Meeting Topics
Topics of Tuesday’s meeting will include:
- iNtegrate2 Reporting Plan
- Report Design timeline
- Defining Standard Reports and Campus Reports, including Standard Reports to be developed by NSHE
- Report Writers’ roles and security levels within Workday
- Report Governance
- How Reporting will be tested
- Workday-delivered reports and how custom reports can be created
- Campus Reports, and how they will be approved and shared
The kick-off also will include a review of standard HCM, Payroll and Finance Reports.
Next Week’s Planning Session
The Core Project Team, key campus representatives, SCI Project consultants and Workday representatives will gather in Reno March 9-11 for a comprehensive Project Planning Session. The goals of the session are to:
- Re-evaluate our Project Plan.
- Assess our progress to-date and how the unique realities facing our implementation are impacting our timeline.
- Review our currently allocated resources and how the availability of additional resources could affect the timeline.
The updated proposal that emerges from that session is expected to then be reviewed by the Campus Executives Committee and the Project’s Executive Steering Committee before a final proposed plan is prepared for review and consideration by the Board of Regents.
We’ll share the outcomes from that Planning Session as soon as possible.